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The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, meeting at its 29th Ordinary Session in Tripoli, Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, from 23rd April to 7th May 2001:
Considering that the Republic of Tunisia is a party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights;
Considering the relevant provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, in particular articles 9(2), 10(1), 12(1) and 12(2);
Considering the provisions of other international and regional human rights instruments on freedom of conscience, freedom of movement, and right to association;
Considering the Declaration of 9th December 1998 of the United Nations General Assembly on the "rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognised human rights and basic freedoms" and in particular Article 1 which states that "every individual has the right, individually, or in association with others, to promote the protection and the implementation of human rights and basic freedoms";
Concerned by the decision dated on 27th November 2000 suspending the activities of the Ligue Tunisienne de Défense des Droits de l'Homme (LTDH), one of the oldest human rights NGOs in Africa;
Welcoming with satisfaction the recent initiatives by Tunisian authorities to address the situation.
1. Invites the Chairman of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights to write to the President of the Republic of Tunisia to express its concerns about the situation of human rights defenders in Tunisia;
2. Offers to send a mission of good offices, if necessary, led by the Chairman of the Commission, in view of addressing the problem of the suspension of the Ligue Tunisienne de Défense des Droits de l'Homme.
Done in Tripoli, 7th May 2001.


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Learning Resources | News
The University of California, Irvine's (UC Irvine) OpenCourseWare program (OCW) has won the 2011 Award for Institutions in this year's OPAL Awards.
The award, given by the Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL), recognizes "innovation in improving the quality of open education resources." according to information released by the school.
The first university on the west coast to join the OpenCourseWare Consortium, UC Irvine has published more than 1,000 learning assets, 120 lectures, and more than 66 complete courses, with approximately 10 courses added each month.
Launched in November 2009, many of UC Irvine's "OCW offerings are directed at working adults seeking continuing education, with the option to enroll in instructor-led, for-credit courses, related to the OCW content," according to information on the initiative's Web site.
OPAL's goal is to support open educational practice in an effort to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning through the increased quality and quantity of open educational resources, according to information on the organization's Web site. It is supported by the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the International Council for Open and Distance Education, the European Foundation for Quality E Learning, and several European universities.
"Colleges and universities worldwide increasingly recognize the benefits of adding resources for students, teachers, self learners, businesses, governments, and other organizations anywhere in the world," said Gary Matkin, dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning, and Summer Session at UC Irvine. "The international recognition of UC Irvine's OpenCourseWare program honors UCI's contribution to open education and hopefully will inspire others to offer university-quality educational resources that can be accessible anywhere in the world and at anytime."
Visit ocw.uci.edu for more information about UC Irvine's OpenCourseWare initiative. For more information about Opal, visit oer-quality.org.
About the Author
Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Corp , best known for its television sets and home theatre systems, wants to feed Singaporeans its radishes and lettuce.
A unit of the electronics conglomerate last week started selling to a chain of Japanese restaurants in Singapore fresh produce grown in what it says is the first licensed indoor vegetable farm in the island state.
The move ties Panasonic's deeper push into farming technology with land-scarce Singapore's ambition to reduce its near-total reliance on food imports.
"We foresee agriculture to be a potential growth portfolio, given the global shortage of arable land, climate change and increasing demand for quality food as well as stable food supply," Mr Hideki Baba, managing director of Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia Pacific, told reporters.
The facility, which presently has a small production capacity of 3.6 tonnes annually, produces 10 types of vegetables such as mini red radishes and baby spinach.
Indoor farming has found favour with other hi-tech Japanese companies as well. Fujitsu Ltd is growing lettuce at its Fukushima province plant, while Sharp Corp is testing growing strawberries indoors in Dubai.
In Singapore, Panasonic's 248 sq m farm is located inside a factory building on the outskirts of the city, where standard fluorescent lighting gives way to a pinkish-purple glow from LED lights brought in to nurture the plants. The company restricts visitors to maintain the controlled levels of temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide.
It aims to grow more than 30 crop varieties by March 2017 and account for around 5 per cent of local vegetable production. It said the vegetables grown at its facility could be half the price of those flown in from Japan.
Panasonic said Singapore was ideal for its indoor farm due to the country's low food self-sufficiency and limited land.
Singapore, ranked by the World Bank as the second most densely populated country, imports more than 90 per cent of its food.
Singapore produced nearly 22,000 tonnes of vegetables in 2013, compared with a little more than 17,000 tonnes in 2004, according to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority. Last year, it imported 514,574 tonnes of vegetables.
While Singapore ranks fifth out of 109 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit's global food security index, the government wants to diversify its food sources and become more self reliant in producing eggs, fish and leafy vegetables.
As part of its efforts, it has provided some funding and research support to local vertical farming company Sky Greens, which grows leafy vegetables at its farm in three-storey high frames inside greenhouses.
The farm currently has 600 such towers and intends to expand to 2,000 by next year. It can produce up to 1 tonne of vegetables a day, which it sells to local supermarket FairPrice. Some farms in Singapore are also using aeroponics or hydroponics - growing plants without soil.
Agro-technology expert Lee Sing Kong said Singapore can improve its food security for perishable items like vegetables, which cannot be stored for long periods unlike grains, by using new techniques of cultivation to increase productivity.
"We must grow some of our own in order to provide a kind of buffer during the period when supply has been disrupted," said Mr Lee, a professor of biological sciences at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Still, some locally grown produce comes at a premium. At FairPrice, Sky Greens' nai bai vegetable retails at more than double the price of an import from China.


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(visited by Joby Lafky)
28-Jul-2002 -- I had to go to Singapore on business, so checked for nearby confluences. 1N 104E appeared to be off the coast of a small island in Indonesia, not far from Singapore.
I took a ferry from Singapore to Batam, Indonesia, and looked for a taxi driver who spoke English (I don't speak any Indonesian, and this seemed like to complicated a thing to do with hand signs). I eventually found one (Mr. Eri Anggi), and negotiated a price of S$ 70 (US-$ 40) for all day transportation and translation.
We talked for quite a while about what I was trying to do. At first, he tried to talk me in to going to other parts of the island that were easier to get to. He got out a cellular phone and made 5 or 6 calls to figure out where a boat might be. He didn't find anyone who had both a phone and a boat, but he apparently got some advice from some friends on where to find one.
He then drove us across the island to a fishing village less than 3 miles from the Confluence, but no one there would hire out a boat to a foreigner with such a strange destination.
We backtracked north about halfway up the island, and then left the pavement. We drove about 5 miles down muddy dirt roads, often sliding sideways in the turns. Eventually we got to another fishing village that was actually closer to the confluence.
Again, the people with the boats were somewhat confused as to what I wanted to do. One woman asked him if I had lost my mind, but seemed to think it was funny rather than alarming. Mr. Anggi had refined his explanation though, and managed to convince them it was a good idea.
We waited around for about 30 minutes as the men of the village decided which boat we'd take, and who would go with us. They selected a beautiful handmade wooden boat with a Honda outboard, Mr Anggi and I got in, along with 4 guys from the village, and we headed off.
The boat was almost out of gas, so we made a side trip to another village that had a gas station. This consisted of a house on high stilts with a bunch of 5 gallon gas cans inside. Gassed up, we headed out to the confluence, now about 2 miles away. Mr. Anggi explained how the GPS worked, the guy in the front of the boat took it from me and guided us the rest of the way.
Once we got to the confluence, we made 3 passes trying to get as close to all zeros as possible. Eventually, I decided .002' and .007' would have to do, and took the pictures. We headed back to the village, where we were met by a big group of children.
Mr. Anggi took me to his house for lunch, and then back to the ferry terminal.


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A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons).
"Very wet rain events are the trigger," said Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth's surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults."
Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes of magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season, and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards.
During the last 50 years three very wet tropical cyclone events—Typhoons Morakot, Herb, and Flossie—were followed within four years by major earthquakes in Taiwan's mountainous regions. The 2009 Morakot typhoon was followed by a magnitude-6.2 quake in 2009 and a magnitude-6.4 in 2010. The 1996 Typhoon Herb was followed by a magnitude-6.2 in 1998 and a magnitude-7.6 in 1999, and the 1969 Typhoon Flossie was followed by a magnitude-6.2 in 1972.
The 2010 magnitude-7 earthquake in Haiti occurred in the mountainous region one-and-a-half years after two hurricanes and two tropical storms drenched the island nation within 25 days.
The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carry eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened. "The reduced load unclamps the faults, which can promote an earthquake," said Wdowinski.
Fractures in Earth's bedrock from the movement of tectonic plates, known as faults, build up stress as they attempt to slide past each other, periodically releasing the stress in the form of an earthquake.
According to the scientists, this earthquake-triggering mechanism is only viable on inclined faults, where the rupture by these faults has a significant vertical movement.
Wdowinski's study also suggests a trend in the tropical cyclone-earthquake pattern exists in magnitiude-5 and above earthquakes. The researchers plan to analyze patterns in other seismically active mountainous regions, such as the Philippines and Japan, that are subjected to tropical cyclone activity.


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Knott Applies Wabash Lessons to Business World
by Kim Johnson May 2, 2008 Jake Knott '03, former captain of the Wabash College football team and letterman on the baseball team, is no stranger to coaching. Even as a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch in Indianapolis he defines himself as a coach. Although rather than coaching with a ball and bat, he sees his coaching role as being about emotional coaching as well as financial coaching. "Over the years in this business, I've definitely learned about helping manage people's emotions and keeping them from making a bad or drastic emotional decision," Knott said. "That is just as much a part of this job as knowing how to invest their money. Some people can handle changing market conditions, some people can't." Knott strives to quickly gauge a client's risk tolerance and help him or her set realistic expectations. "When years are positive people are always wondering 'why couldn't we earn more?' but those are the same people who now can't understand why they've lost any money. In order to be able to grow, you have to be able to put a little bit at risk." The two-sport athlete has never shied away from hard work and risk in academics and athletics. Even though he tried his luck as a professional football player, he knew his athletic career would eventually end, so he chose to attend Wabash. He was impressed with the academic rigor and knew his education would serve him well. "It's not only because of the academic rigor, there are other rigors, but you just get this feeling you can handle anything once you go through Wabash," Knott said. "I was fortunate enough to be in athletics that were both very important to the College and the other people involved. It just reinforces that no matter what comes your way or what you want to do you can do it." Part of what Knott appreciates most about his Wabash education relates to the "think critically" piece of the College's mission statement. "Going through Wabash – I just sort of thought it was standard issue – but come to find out it's not always like that at other places." He understands the impact it has on his current career. "Now that I'm in this business, I appreciate the fours years of having to have an opinion and be able to defend it. When clients ask 'what do you think about the markets right now?' They don't want to hear 'I don't know, I'm not real sure.' They want me to have an opinion and I better be right more than the weatherman." Now that Knott has gotten over the "hump" with Merrill Lynch he enjoys the freedom his career as a financial advisor affords him. "The first two years weren't easy – we had certain goals. Being Merrill Lynch, ours are some of the toughest in the industry to meet. It's a little like a weed-out course." He knows though his destiny is in his own hands. The work he puts in impacts what he gets out of it. "If I don't want to get on the phone and call that next person, I don't have to, but that also directly leads to my bottom line. When it's 1:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon, 80 degrees out, and guys are playing golf, I can go play golf but that's not going to bring any more business in the door. "That's what gets me out of bed – knowing that it's up to me. I don't have to worry about 'the boss didn't give me a promotion, the boss doesn't like me.' All that matters is what I want to do." With freedom comes responsibility. Beyond the goals Merrill Lynch has set for him in the past, he has set goals for himself in order to achieve a desired level of financial security for he and his wife Darcy. In the business world Knott understands he only has to answer to himself but he keeps his eyes set to standards his father David Knott '69 instilled in him while growing up. "The only rule my dad ever gave us growing up was 'do what's right' because it will generally take care of everything." Knott recognizes in addition to the values he learned at home and the high caliber education he received at Wabash there is something else that contributed to his current success – the alumni connection. After talking with an alumnus in the field, he was given contact information for individuals at Merrill Lynch, and within days he was connected with someone from the company. He describes the alumni connection as the "firefighter mentality." "Here we are in this tiny, all-male bubble – you end up developing these bonds with each other because it's a unique experience," one that few others have shared – only other Wabash students and alumni. Knott feels too few students understand the strength of the alumni network and truly take advantage of all it has to offer. "When alumni are on campus, they want to talk to you, learn about you and find out how they might be able to help you on your path because they genuinely want to see you succeed. "I saw fraternity brothers who when successful alumni were around they were never here. I always thought that's when you want to be hanging around – when all the big, rich guys driving Mercedes are hanging out." He hopes he can return the favor and one day be able to assist a Wabash student seeking a career in financial advising. So what would he say as an alumnus to a student interested in a similar career path? "It's going to be tough, especially early. It's also very rewarding. If you can get through it, it's definitely worth it. "Which is the same thing they say about Wabash." |


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Facebook snags Microsoft's Atlas to boost ad sales
The deal gives the social-networking giant a tool to use the information gleaned from its users to serve up more relevant ads.
After months of speculation, Facebook today agreed to buy Microsoft's Atlas online-advertising platform, boosting the social-networking giant's ability to compete against Google in the display ad business.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies also didn't disclose the number of employees the deal affects, but Facebook noted that Atlas' employees will remain in Seattle.
Facebook and Microsoft, already partners in several businesses, began talking about a deal for Atlas, which helps advertisers buy and manage ads, late last year. The deal could help Facebook develop its own one-stop shop for advertisers and agencies to buy, sell, optimize, and track ads across the Web. The idea is to help Facebook give marketers tools to target ads based on social habits that it captures, and to better understand how social activity influences consumer purchases.
"Our belief is that measuring various touch points in the marketing funnel will help advertisers to see a more complete view of the effectiveness of their campaigns," Brian Boland, Facebook's director of product marketing, wrote in a blog post. "Acquiring Atlas will be an important step towards achieving this goal."
The expectation that Facebook will create an ad network that lets it sell ads outside of the social network has been talked about for a while, and it makes good sense. Facebook is already plugged into tons of Web sites through Facebook Connect, and each time people share or "like" an item on a site, Facebook's data trove gets a little bigger. Facebook can connect that data with the information from within Facebook -- the social graph -- to create a social ad network that is potentially more effective than Google's AdSense.
Wall Street has wanted Facebook to do this for a while, though company executives have been quiet on the topic. It's a logical way for the social network to expand its business without cluttering up the Facebook site itself. A third-party ad network could become a multibillion-dollar business, and the financial pressure on Facebook is intense. Its stock, now around $27, has yet to claw back to its initial public offering price of $38.
"This is a big opportunity and definitely on the list of to-dos," Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, recently told CNET. "It's a matter of when they think the platform is ready and they're comfortable with privacy issues. The minute people go to other sites and see ads that look like they're coming from Facebook, alarm bells go off. They have to go into this slowly."
But a Facebook representative notes that the deal isn't about creating an ad network. Instead, it's hoping to help advertisers measure the impact of their ads across all forms of digital advertising. That's a challenge for online ads, and solving that problem could ultimately boost the industry, something that would certainly benefit Facebook. It gives the company a tool to measure how well ad campaigns do both on and off of Facebook.
"If marketers and agencies can get a holistic view of campaign performance, they will be able to do a much better job of making sure the right messages get in front of the right people at the right time," Facebook's Boland wrote. "Atlas has built capabilities that allow for this kind of measurement, and enhancing these systems will give marketers a deeper understanding of effectiveness and lead to better digital advertising experiences for consumers."
For Microsoft, the deal is another step away from its $6 billion deal to buy aQuantive, of which Atlas was a part, in 2007. The software giant wrote off most of the costs of that deal last July.
Microsoft is not walking away from online advertising. But rather than owning a singular ad technology and tools platform, the company is focusing on building devices and services -- such as Windows 8, its Surface tablets, Xbox Live, and Skype, among others -- that are advertising platforms.
"This deal allows us to dedicate even more energy and resources to those areas of our business that are core to the future direction of Microsoft Advertising," Microsoft Advertising Chief Operating Officer Dave O'Hara said in a blog post announcing the deal.
Update, 1:20 p.m. PT: Adds comment from Facebook and Microsoft.
Update, 2:48 p.m. PT: Adds more details from Facebook.


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Your LTV Math is Wrong
There has been a lot of good stuff written over the years on the topic of calculating customer lifetime value (LTV). Thus, it amazes me how many times I discover faulty thinking when I talk to entrepreneurs regarding their LTV math. One portfolio company executive confessed to me last week that he knows he is doing it wrong but he just didn't have the time to research the best way to do the LTV calculation.
Since I see a few common patterns of mistakes, I thought I'd add to the LTV literature and point out the top three reasons many investors roll their eyes when they see entrepreneurs present inflated, poorly constructed LTVs:
1) Your churn rate is understated
One important component to an LTV calculation is the churn rate or cancellation rate. Many blogs suggest you simply divide 1 by your monthly churn rate to get to a number of months of duration that you can expect to collect revenues from your customer. Thus, if your average monthly churn rate is "c", the number of months of revenue you will receive over the lifetime of a customer is 1/c.
The problem is that many early-stage companies have no idea what their average, long-term churn rate really is because they are simply too young. When they have 6 month or 12 month or even 18 month cohorts, they extrapolate from those cohorts and come up with an absurd time period for their customers to stick around generating revenue. For example, if you have a 2% monthly churn rate in your first year, then some folks will extrapolate their monthly revenues out 50 months. A monthly churn rate of 1%? Then multiply that monthly revenue by 100.
As Jason Cohen points out, it's just not realistic that in a wildly competitive, dynamic technology market, a company can expect to hold on to its customer on average for 8-10 years. And, in my experience, you are so hyper-focused on satisfying and servicing your early customers that extrapolating your early churn rate just isn't going to be accurate.
To fix this potential issue, I recommend you pick a fixed cap number of months - conservatively 36, or three years - and recalibrate your LTV math accordingly. Your new expected months of revenue (N) would now = [1-(1-c)^36]/c. For example, if your churn rate is 1%/month, instead of assuming 100 months of revenue, you calculate 30 months. Anything beyond 36 months just doesn't seem credible - and shouldn't even matter that much when you think about the next issue - a start-up's cost of capital.
2) Your cost of capital is too low
Ask an entrepreneur about their cost of capital and you'll likely get a blank stare. Cost of capital is the rate of return that an investor who provides capital expects from investing that capital. Today, the United States government has a cost of capital of nearly zero - for example, it can borrow money for 10 years and pay only 2% interest. 2% per year is the expected return that an investor in US treasuries requires because the risk of holding an IOU from the US government is so low.
For a start-up to raise capital, it must sell equity to venture capitalists or other investors that expect an annual return more like 30-40% in exchange for the high risk that the company will never be able to pay back the investor and the investment will be written down to zero. Thus, the cost of capital for a start-up (and the dilution a founder faces in exchange for that capital) is very high. Therefore, back end loaded cash flows are not nearly as valuable for a start-up as front end loaded cash flows.
That's a bit of context as to why start-ups need to highly discount future cash flows when calculating their LTV. I suggest 3%/month which results in a roughly 30% annual cost of capital. Thus, if you are receiving $100 in recurring revenue, you should value next month's $100 in revenue as $97 and month 2 as $94. In practice, combining this point with the one above, take your number of months of revenue (say, 30) and use the 3%/month discount rate to calculate the value of the months of revenue = [1-(1-3%)^30]/3% = 20 months of revenue - 1/5th what you would have calculated if you had simply used 1%/month churn rate with no time limit and no discount rate!
3) You forgot about Gross Margin - and you're probably overstating them.
I recently received a board deck from one of my portfolio companies which treated revenue as the numerator in their LTV calculation. Entrepreneurs sometimes forget that a dollar of revenue isn't worth a dollar in incremental contribution. Instead, there is real cost to produce this revenue: a cost of service, processing, data, storage, media, overhead whatever.
Many early stage companies don't yet have experienced CFOs who can help them with precise gross margin calculations, so they assume a gross margin that is too high. SaaS companies think "mature SaaS company margins are 80%" so I'll just use that. But you are not mature. Your executive team spends more time selling and servicing than you account for. Your engineers spend more time servicing customers over time and addressing issues and bugs and feature requests than you account for. Thus, your COGS (cost of goods) are understated and your gross margin is overstated. Salesforce.com has a gross margin of 75% with their scale of $6 billion in annual revenue. Can yours really be the same or even 5-10 percentage points better? And are you sure your gross margin calculation is factoring in all variable costs not related to customer acquisition or are some costs sneaking "below the line" into, say, SG&A?
To fix this one, the rule of thumb I suggest you use is to discount an additional 10% points beyond whatever your finance head says your gross margin is. Thus, if you think your gross margin is 70%, assume for LTV calculation purposes 60%. So, in the example above, instead of summing up $100 revenue over 20 months (factoring in a shorter time horizon and a higher cost of capital), you would sum up $60 over 20 months. Add all three factors together, and instead of multiplying $100 in monthly revenue by 100x for an LTV of $10,000, you would be multiplying $60 in monthly contribution margin by 20x for an LTV of $1,200.
All of these factors - time realism, appropriate cost of capital and accurate gross margins - discount your LTV as compared to simpler methods. Sorry, but that is the reality of LTV math. If you have a business with strong network effects, there can be a reason to believe that your metrics will meaningfully improve over time. But another reality of LTV math is that absent strong network effects or other large benefits of scale, many times your metrics get worse with scale. I cover this phenomenon in another blog post and so will simply say: make sure you don't overstate early metrics with rosy extrapolations.
A mentor of mine is fond of saying that every business plan contains the same word in relation to its forecasts: "conservative". It is better to be truly conservative - or, dare I say, accurate - rather than letting a savvy, cynical investor do it for you.


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There doesn't appear to be a supported way to integrate Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), though of course various third party tools will no doubt step in to fill that gap. While I ensure this is the case with Microsoft, I thought I'd touch on a related topic I've been thinking about lately: New Windows 7 installs. I'll be migrating my home server to Windows Home Server 2011 when the final version of that product becomes available, and will be documenting that process when it happens. But I've also been looking at my various desktop and portable PCs and have begun the process of wiping them out and reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows 7 with SP1.
There are many reasons for this. I tend to wipe out my own PCs on a fairly regular basis because of all the software I test. But I'm also beginning the process of migrating existing PCs--and perhaps servers, we'll see--to SSD (solid state drive) devices which, while still expensive, offer dramatic performance improvements over standard hard drives (HDDs). On my desktops, I'll be experimenting with SSD boot devices and normal HDDs for data, and on my notebooks I'm moving from HDDs to SSDs or hybrid disks (which combine solid state storage with traditional hard drive hardware).
Another part of this process involves removing optical disk technology from as many PCs as possible. These drives take up space in computers and are becoming superfluous, so I'm eliminating where I can and trying to purchase optical drive-less PCs going forward. This is particularly important for portable devices, where the saved space can be used for additional battery, increasing portability. Or it can simply result in a smaller PC, which also enhances portability.
With regards to the integrated versions of Windows 7 and SP1 I need to install, I've obtained the appropriate Setup ISOs (disk images) from my MSDN subscription, and of course those with TechNet subscriptions and other sources of obtaining such files can do similarly. But rather than burn the ISOs to DVDs, as I have typically done in the past, this time around I'm using a handier and more easily reusable media type to install Windows 7: The lowly USB memory key. And as it turns out, there are a couple of ways to make this happen.
Method #1: Use Microsoft's Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
In the past, Microsoft offered a tool called the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool that automated the process of converting a Windows 7 Setup ISO file and copy its contents to a bootable USB storage device or to DVD. I documented using this tool to install Windows 7 on a netbook computer--because such machines typically don't include optical drives--in my article Upgrade A Netbook From Windows XP To Windows 7, part of the Windows 7 Upgrade Scenarios series from October 2009.
Those instructions should work fine with an integrated Windows 7 and SP1 ISO image. But there's just one problem: While this tool is in fact still available from third parties, Microsoft's original download and documentation links for the tool are currently MIA. So I'm not necessarily comfortable recommending this going forward, especially if Microsoft isn't committed to updating and support the tool. (Update: Not sure how Google/Bing failed me so badly, but Microsoft does still offer this tool on this web page.)
But that's OK, because the alternative way to using a USB memory key to install Windows is still pretty simple...
Method #2: Use Tools Built Into Windows
Automation is always wonderful, but Windows 7 includes all almost the tools you need to copy the contents of a Windows 7 Setup ISO file (or a Windows 7 Setup DVD) to a bootable USB memory key. All you'll need is:
- A Windows 7-based PC of some kind.
- A USB memory key. This device will need to have enough storage to hold the contents of Windows 7 Setup, so you're looking for a device with 4 GB of storage or more. (The smallest mainstream 32-bit version of Windows 7 still takes up more than 2 GB of space on disk, so 4 GB is the minimum.)
- WinRAR or a similar utility that can extract the contents of an ISO file.
Here's how you do it.
1. Insert the USB key into your PC. (Note that this process will wipe out its contents.)
2. Open the Start Menu, type diskpart in Start Menu Search and then tap Enter. Click Yes on the User Account Control dialog that appears. A command line window will open with the diskpart command line utility running.
3. Type list disk and then tap Enter. You will see a listing of the various disks attached to your PC, including the USB key.
You will need to find the USB key in the list. In my case, the USB key is identified as Disk 6 (3700 MB), but this can (and likely will) be different on your own PC.
4. Type select disk # where "#" is the number of disk representing the USB key (In my case, 6.) and then tap Enter. Disk part will report, "Disk 6 is now the selected disk." (Or whatever number is correct for you.)
5. Type clean and then tap Enter. Diskpart will run for a second and then report, "Diskpart succeeded in cleaning the disk."
6. Type create partition primary and tap Enter. Diskpart will run for a second and then report, "Diskpart succeeded in creating the specified partition."
7. Type active and then tap Enter. Diskpart will run for (less than) a second and then report, "Diskpart marked the current partition as active."
8. Type format fs=fat32 quick (or, if the USB key is over 4GB, format fs=ntfs quick) and then tap Enter. Diskpart will provide a percentage progress indicator while it formats the device. Eventually, diskpart will report that the process is "100 percent completed" and note that "Diskpart successfully formatted the volume."
9. Type assign and then tap Enter. This assigns the next available drive letter to the USB key. Diskpart will report, "Diskpart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point," and an AutoPlay dialog will most likely appear. Dismiss the dialog.
10. Type exit and tap Enter to close diskpart (and the command line window).
11. Now you need to extract the contents of the Setup ISO to your hard drive. If you're using a Windows 7 Setup DVD instead of an ISO file, of course, you can skip this step. There are various utilities that can extract the contents of an ISO file, but I happen to like and use WinRAR, which is available in a trial version online. (I pay for WinRAR, by the way, because it's so useful and such a regular part of my workflow.) To extract the ISO with WinRAR, right-click it and choose Extract Files (an option that WinRAR adds to the Windows 7 context menu.)
Ensure that the path is what you want in WinRAR (I usually just create a folder on the desktop, something like "Win7") and then click OK. WinRAR will extract the contents of the ISO file to the selected folder.
12. When the extraction is complete, you'll want to open two Explorer windows: One for the folder to which you extracted the Windows 7 Setup files (the source) and one for the USB key (the destination). Select all of the files in the source folder and drag and drop them (copy them) to the USB key.
The file copy phase could take a while.
13. When that's done, you're good to go. You should now be able to boot the appropriate PC using the USB key and install Windows 7. Note, however, that most PCs will require you to interrupt the normal boot process and manually select the USB key as the boot disk. How you do this varies from PC to PC. On the ThinkPad notebooks I prefer, you typically hit the blue ThinkVantage button to perform this and other pre-boot tasks, but on some PCs you will need to tap F2, F11, F12, or some other key. Consult your PC's documentation for the details.
However you do it, once the PC is booting from the USB key, Setup will work just like it does via a normal Setup DVD.


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Friends Season 4 Episode 15 : The One With All The Rugby
Ross plays rugby with some of Emily's English friends and ends up in a lot of pain afterward. Chandler runs into Janice and tells her that his company is transferring him to Yemen in an effort to escape reuniting with her. Monica obsesses over a light switch that doesn't seem to control anything, and even cuts the wall open herself to follow the wire after an electrician, the super and the electrical plans to the building prove unfruitful. It is ...
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